CLEMENTS OFFERS AN APOLOGY OVER PAYMENTS TO ATHLETES

By ROBERT REINHOLD, Special to the New York Times

Published: March 11, 1987

AUSTIN, Tex., March 10—
In an effort to end the politically damaging scandal over illicit payments to football players at Southern Methodist University, Gov. Bill Clements issued an apology today for his role in approving them.

''To those rightfully upset and angry about the decision, I am sorry,'' he said at a news conference.

The Texas Governor said that after he rejoined the board of governors of the university in 1983 he found a widespread ''cancer'' of payments to athletes by boosters and that he and several other members decided to ''phase'' them out rather than cut off the players at once.''

''In hindsight, it is clear we were wrong,'' Mr. Clements said. ''S.M.U. is the victim of a system we should have stopped immediately.''

But in remarks to reporters later, Mr. Clements fanned the flames of controversy by insisting that the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which last month canceled S.M.U.'s 1987 football season for repeated recruiting infractions, implicitly approved continuing the payments in 1985. 'There Wasn't Ever a Bible'

According to Mr. Clements, he told the N.C.A.A.'s infractions committee in April 1985 that the school was ''cleaning up'' the program, adding that the panel was ''not naive'' and knew that this meant the job was not yet done. ''I am convinced in my mind they knew exactly what I was talking about,'' Mr. Clements said.

Asked if he had told ''the whole truth'' to the N.C.A.A., Mr. Clements responded, ''There wasn't ever a Bible present.''

In Mission, Kan., David Berst, director of enforcement for the N.C.A.A., a private group that regulates intercollegiate sports, charged Mr. Clements with deception.

''We took Clements at face value,'' Mr. Berst said. ''No one in the N.C.A.A. condoned a winding down of the violations. We thought they meant that he and the board would not tolerate any misbehavior from that point forward. I think these are attempts to rationalize his involvement in serious violations.'' Administration Is Hobbled

The scandal has hobbled the 69-year-old Republican Governor's seven-week-old administration, and news reports have implicated several other S.M.U. board members, many of them pillars of the business community in Dallas, site of the university.

On Feb. 25, the N.C.A.A. imposed its harshest penalties ever when it canceled the football season at S.M.U., which has been on probation four times in the last 12 years. The N.C.A.A. uncovered payments of $61,000 to 13 players from September 1985 to last December.

One week ago, after months of denials, Mr. Clements conceded he had approved them. He was chairman of the S.M.U. board from 1967 to 1973 and again from 1983 to January 1987, when he resigned to become Governor. 'Let's Move Forward'

His news conference today was vintage Bill Clements, who became the first Republican Governor of Texas this century when he was elected eight years ago and who lost a re-election bid before regaining the job last year. He was at times humorous, testy and impatient. He told reporters to stop being so ''rambunctious'' and to ''calm down now,'' ultimately trying to fend off the throng at the pink granite State Capitol by saying, ''Let's move forward - I'm through with this now.''

In his statement, Mr. Clements said that when he rejoined the board ''reluctantly'' in 1983, a widespread ''booster network'' was paying certain players. He said he first became aware of this in the fall of 1984, when the matter of Sean Stopperich became public. The athlete was an offensive lineman from Pittsburgh who accepted $5,000 to attend S.M.U.

''For the first time, we began to understand the problem and start thinking in terms of a solution,'' Mr. Clements said. As the N.C.A.A. focused only on the Stopperich case, Mr. Clements said several members of the board and the administration found that boosters were paying 26 athletes.

''Shocked that such practices were occurring, appalled to find out through investigation that such a system had been established and ongoing through the mid-70's, we were determined to put an end to it and return to a system of full compliance and integrity,'' the Governor said.

''After much discussion - and much agonizing - we chose a phase-out system. We did it reluctantly and uncomfortably, but feeling this approach would be in the best interest of S.M.U., the Dallas community, the players and their families. It's clear now we made the wrong decision.''

The N.C.A.A. was never informed in 1985 that 25 players, in addition to the Pittsburgh player, were being paid. Asked why not, Mr. Clements said he was trying to ''find a solution and move forward'' rather than walk away from the problem. ''It didn't work,'' he said. 'Present and Future Tense'

Mr. Clements enlisted the rules of grammar to defend his position. ''I said we were cleaning up the program,'' he said. ''That is an absolutely true statement. We were cleaning up the program and I defy you or anyone else to ever give a quote where-in I said this program is now clean. I never said anything like that. I said we are cleaning up the program. That is in the present and future tense. It's not that we have accomplished our purpose. We were working on it and I never told the N.C.A.A. anything but that.''

He said that with 100 athletes on the football squad the N.C.A.A. knew that the lineman from Pittsburgh ''was not the only bad apple in the barrel - they absolutely knew that.''

According to Mr. Berst of the N.C.A.A., a tape of the meeting with Mr. Clements in 1985 had the Governor saying, ''We will not tolerate any misbehavior in the future.''

Mr. Berst said he took that to mean the payments would stop immediately. ''He is saying we don't understand plain English,'' Mr. Berst said. 'Didn't Know Governor Aware'

''Not only did we not know what was going on, but we didn't know that the Governor was aware.''

Mr. Clements denied any personal involvement in channeling money to athletes. He pledged cooperation with a special bishops council of the Methodist Church, which is to investigate the episode, and urged fellow board members to admit their roles. He has refused to give names, but news reports have implicated several prominent Dallas businessmen, including former Mayor Robert Folsom, Mr. Clements said he was saddened by the ''tragedy'' at S.M.U., but argued that it was not peculiar. ''This is not an S.M.U. problem or a Southwest Conference problem - it is a national problem,'' he asserted, calling on the N.C.A.A. to impose rules to penalize not only offending schools but also to make athletes who accept payments ineligible at all N.C.A.A.-affiliated colleges.

He said that he thought S.M.U. would lead the way in ''curing the disease that threatens all college athletics.'' S.M.U.: WHAT CLEMENTS HAS SAID Bill Clements, now the Governor of Texas, recently admitted that in 1984, while he was chairman of Southern Methodist University's board of governors, he secretly approved of a plan to phase out illicit payments to athletes rather than stop the payments outright. Following are some of his public comments on the matter: Aug. 19, 1985: Speaking at a news conference after the National Collegiate Athletic Association put the school on probation for recruiting violations involving illicit payments: ''We at S.M.U. regret this very much. These charges, I have to say, came as a surprise to us. . . . It's a bitter pill to swallow, but we'll take our medicine and move forward and take whatever steps are necessary to make every effort to see that this does not happen again.''

Nov. 25, 1986: Mr. Clements was elected Governor Nov. 4, 1986. Nine days later, a former S.M.U. football player said he was paid after the N.C.A.A. probation was imposed. Mr. Clements spoke at a news conference announcing the end of the school's lenient admissions policy for athletes: ''I am tired of this monkey business, this Mickey-Mouse business, going on in our . . . football program. . . . We are an educational institution. If we can't bring this program under control, we will abandon it. That is an option.'' Feb. 25, 1987: Following his resignation from the board of governors to take office: ''We are going to have a program with integrity, or we are not going to have a program. It is just that simple. . . . This area of misbehavior is essentiallly in the alums, in the former students, so to speak, and they get over-enthusiastic and they are doing things that nobody knows about and that's just got to stop.'' Feb. 25, 1987: Asked whether he ever authorized payments to players: ''Hell no. Absolutely not.'' March 3, 1987: At a news conference in Austin, Tex., a week after the N.C.A.A. suspended the school's football program for the 1987 season: ''These matters were all considered by the board of governors and the administration at S.M.U., and there was a decision made that we would phase out and eliminate - in due course - all of the arrangements that had been made in the recruiting of certain athletes at S.M.U. We - capital we - made a considered judgment over several months that the commitments had been made and that in the interests of the institution, the boys, their families and to comply with the N.C.A.A., that the program would be phased out and that we would comply in a full sense of integrity to all the rules and regulations.'' March 10, 1987: In an apology for his role in approving the continued illicit payments: ''To those rightfully upset and angry about the decision, I am sorry.''